"Hello Sarah-Jane.""Oh my God... I'm the tin dog!"
"You can spend the rest of your life with me. But I can't spend the rest of my life with you... that's the curse of the Time Lord."
"I saw things you wouldn't believe..."
"We are in a car!"
"You good dog."
"You need a Smith on board!"
"Say it please! This time... say it."
Darn... tonight is when America get another new episode of Doctor Who on the Sci-Fi Channel and I completely forgot about it. And I am really kicking myself because this is by far one of the best episodes of the revitalized series.
(Yah I'm one of those die-hard Who fans that downloads the bootlegs from England right after they run there... if there's any better use for bit-torrent I've yet to find it :-)
It'll probably be rerun throughout the weekend though, but tonight brought us "School Reunion". After almost a quarter-century since we last saw her in the special "The Five Doctors", Sarah-Jane Smith returns! And like I said when I first reviewed this episode, Elisabeth Sladen is as beautiful as ever. The Doctor (David Tennant) has conveniently become a substitute teacher at a school where a lot of weird things are happening. With Rose (Billie Piper) stationed in the kitchen and Mickey (Noel Clarke) trying to hack some top-secret info - and there's that "Torchwood" thing again - the trio is trying to get to the bottom of things. Meanwhile the headmaster of the school - evilly played by Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Anthony Stewart Head - is leading reporter Sarah-Jane Smith around the school, but she thinks there's something amiss in this place too. And later that night while searching the grounds, Sarah-Jane is confronted with the sight of a certain familiar blue police box...
The reunion of Sarah-Jane - perhaps the most beloved companion in the history of the show - with the Doctor is handled exquisitely. And Sarah-Jane isn't the only one making a comeback: in her car she's got K-9 the robot dog... and after the Doctor makes a few repairs K-9 still has John Leeson's voice! Plenty of references to old-school Who and lot of humor in this episode. And more than the usual amount of heartbreak. There is some really terrific - and sad - dialogue at work here. I thought the scene just before K-9's "last stand" was handled exceptionally well: even if you had never seen K-9 before tonight, you really got the sense that he and the Doctor had a great relationship back in the day. Also well directed is the final scene between the Doctor and Sarah-Jane... which finally brings her the closure that she didn't get when Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor left her back on Earth more than thirty years ago.
Watch it if you possibly can this weekend on the Sci-Fi Channel, or just do what I did and download "School Reunion": this one's a definite Doctor Who classic.
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